


Like An Anchor

by DetectiveJoan



Series: Never Let You Go [2]
Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, super powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 15:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15643602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveJoan/pseuds/DetectiveJoan
Summary: “Okay, but all the adults in Nathan’s life know what atypicals are, so you’ll notice if he starts — I dunno — setting fires with his mind or something,” Caleb says. “Right?”“Probably!” Sam replies. She can’t imagine feeling more frazzled than she is right now, but having her newborn turn out to be a newborn-who-starts-fires would certainly do the trick.





	Like An Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Wind & Anchor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9XM2W66cys) by The National Parks

“Most abilities don’t start presenting consistently until puberty,” Joan says, when Adam asks when they’re going to find out what baby Nathan’s superpower is. “There is some evidence that abilities may manifest earlier, but be inconsistent enough that adults don’t notice. Or they may see it happen once, and then when the child is unable to reproduce the effect, they’ll assume they misunderstood something more normal happening.”

“That’s what Joan said when I told her I teleported in the second grade,” Mark chimes in.

“Okay, but all the adults in Nathan’s life know what atypicals are, so you’ll notice if he starts — I dunno — setting fires with his mind or something,” Caleb says. “Right?”

“Probably!” Sam replies. She can’t imagine feeling more frazzled than she is right now, but having her newborn turn out to be a newborn-who-starts-fires would certainly do the trick.

They get through a lot of milestones without anything atypical happening. First bath and first haircut and first word — those all go normally. Nathan figures out how to roll over, and then crawl, and then pull himself to his feet by clinging to Sam’s leg, and then take a single hesitant step before toppling over into Joan’s waiting arms.

Three days after his first birthday, Sam and Joan are working at the coffee table while Mark lounges on his back on the couch. Nathan has one small fist wrapped around each of his dad's index fingers and is stomping rather ambitiously on his stomach. Sam winces when she sees it, but Mark’s abs must be made of stronger stuff than hers are because he looks like he’s nearly asleep despite his son’s rowdiness. She refocuses on her work.

“Oh _fuck._ Joannie—” Mark says a moment later, and then there’s a crashing sound, and Nathan gasps, and by the time Sam looks up Mark is gone and Nathan is standing…. _in_ the couch? What the hell?

She and Joan spring up at the exact same second, but Sam reaches the baby first. She scoops Nathan up, and holds him a bit too tightly to her chest.

“Uh-oh,” he says, twisting around in her arms to look back down at Mark — or what they can see of him, which is just his arms disconnectedly reaching up through the couch cushions.

Joan takes his hand and helps pull him out of the furniture and to his feet; Sam’s eyes can’t makes sense of what she’s seeing even as it happens.

“I guess we finally know what Nate's ability is,” Mark says.

“Falling _through_ things?” she demands, and then — oh, then she has to pass the baby to Joan and sit down on the floor and put a hand on her chest and focus on her breathing, because she realizes that her lungs stopped working as soon as she heard Nathan gasp and now they’re making up for lost time, going twice as fast as they need to and she’s — hyperventilating, that’s the word.

“Hey, Sam, it’s gonna be okay,” Joan says. “It’s just spatial displacement. Dimensional travel. It’s the same class as your ability. We knew this was a possibility. It’s fine. He's going to be fine.”

Sam nods a bit frantically, and tries to focus on the words. “Spatial displacement,” she echoes. “That’s like….walking through walls.”

“And other things, like furniture,” Mark adds. “But we didn’t fall through the floor, which means it’s still really weak. And it’ll be weaker when I’m not around. He’s got a long time before he’ll make it through any walls.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says around deep breaths. “Okay.”

“And look at the bright side,” Mark says as he takes Nathan from Joan's arms and starts bouncing him like this is all some fun new game. "At least it's not pyrokinesis."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm DetectiveJoan and you can find me on [tumblr](http://detectivejoan.tumblr.com/)


End file.
